


Almost Never

by friskaz



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friskaz/pseuds/friskaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The working title of this fic was "death loop" which might give you a hint as to the contents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Never

Arthur died on a Thursday.

He was on his way to bed, ambling along planning out training schedules in his head, and he missed the part where the maids had been scrubbing the floor and the stones were still wet (earlier one of the knights had been sick all over). His foot slipped on the top step and he tumbled down the entire flight of stairs, arms all akimbo but completely unable to stop his head slamming into the floor at the bottom.

Gaius examined the body and determined that Arthur had died instantly, neck breaking even as his skull broke open and his brain smashed onto the floor.

It took the maids a very long time to clean that up, and Merlin watched them numbly. His hands were tingly, like he had magic he should release, but he didn't think it was a good idea to spend it wiping Arthur's blood off the floor, even though the sight and smell of it was making him woozy.

There was a commotion at the top of the stairs and Merlin looked up mutely, watching in fascination as Morgana flew down the steps, heedless of Gwen's shouts of "careful, milady" and others' gasps of horror. She made it safely to the bottom, though, whereupon she knelt next to Gaius, covering her mouth with her hand and getting blood all over her dress.

"There's nothing we can do," Gaius told her in his best bereaved family tone; Merlin vaguely thought it was sad that he could recognize Gaius's tones like that.

"Nothing at all?" Morgana asked quietly. Merlin had never heard that defeated tone from her before, but it was there, and it scared him. Morgana shouldn't be defeated.

"It's not possible to raise people from the dead," Gaius said, and in his head Merlin filled in 'except maybe by magic,' because Gaius would never say that out loud but he was pretty sure it was possible.

Morgana raised her head and met Merlin's eyes, and Merlin stepped forward and offered her his hand so she could get up off the floor. It was a badly thought out move; he was on the wrong side of Arthur, and he'd have to jump over his body or help her over to get away, but he just stood there, holding her hand and staring at her sad eyes.

"Merlin," Gwen said, and he didn't know what she wanted, couldn't think clearly enough to figure out where to go from here, because it was Arthur on the floor, dead.

He closed his eyes, because Morgana was a distraction, and he could feel the tingling in his hands shift to throbbing, and there were answers there, at the tip of his fingers. He reached out his hand and caught one and squeezed it tight, whispering 'please', and the throbbing throbbed even harder.

Gwen screamed.

Merlin opened his eyes to see Arthur standing up at the top of the steps, and he smiled even though Arthur was staring at him with a strange look on his face. It'd worked!

"What are you doing with my - with Morgana?" Arthur asked, frowning, stepping forward. His foot slid on the floor and he tumbled down, and Merlin threw out his hand to stop it but it was like moving through a rock wall, and he got nowhere. Arthur fell, and Merlin shouted, and Morgana put her hands over her eyes and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Arthur's body came to a stop at the exact same spot as before, and Merlin squeezed his hand into a fist again and threw them backwards and Arthur was walking, staring straight ahead; he hadn't seen them yet.

"Arthur!" Gwen called, and he spun to look at her and slipped on the top step and fell, backwards this time, body twisting in mid-air and coming to land between Merlin and Morgana. His eyes were open and sightless and his blood was spreading out on the floor in the same pattern as before.

"Merlin, do you -" Gwen started, frowning, but Morgana interrupted her.

"Can you go back further?" she asked. "Maybe we can come up with a plan if we just have more time."

"Right," Merlin said, and held his hand up in the air. The tingling started up right away and he focused it, pushing them back about an hour.

::

Arthur was lying on the floor, and his blood spread around his mushed-up brains, pooling in the crevices between the flagstones.

"Okay," Gwen said. "So we've tried stalling the maids, but he slipped on the vomit. We tried distracting the knights, and then one of them spilled wine. We tried taking Arthur outside, and he slipped on the front steps instead, and then we took him up to the tower and he fell out the window."

Morgana covered her mouth. "Don't remind me, please," she said. "We need a plan, and it should be a better plan."

"Maybe if he just doesn't go to the feast at all. How far back would we have to go to get that?" Gwen asked.

"At least half a day?" Morgana suggested. "Merlin?"

"What? Half a day? Okay, right." He held up his hands, concentrating; it was harder every time, the fabric of nature resisting after so many warps. He had to really pull hard, yanking time back to how he wanted it. It almost didn't work, and he bore down with every inch of his stubbornness, and something snapped.

::

"Merlin, I need my cloak for the feast tonight," Arthur said. "Merlin! Are you even listening to me?"

"Maybe you should skip the feast," Merlin suggested slowly. They must have gone back far enough, he had to believe it; there wasn't anything else he could believe.

"Don't be foolish," Arthur said. "I'm not skipping the feast. We're having the deer I caught hunting yesterday, and Morgana is dressing up in a new dress, and anyway, Father would be upset with me."

"Arthur, I just think..."

"I don't ask you to think," Arthur said.

"No, but, aren't there other things you could be doing?"

"Such as what other things?"

"Well," Merlin said. He hadn't really had a plan at all, there hadn't been time to develop one, but he couldn't afford to fail this time. He wouldn't be able to bend time again; the resistance had been too high the last time.

"Merlin?" Arthur asked, a strange glint in his eye.

"Um, so," Merlin said.

Arthur took several steps forward, and Merlin backed up against the table, where he realized he was trapped. "Are you suggesting what I think you might be suggesting?" Arthur asked.

"I, um," Merlin stuttered. He had no idea what Arthur thought he might be suggesting.

Arthur bent him back over the table, using his knightly muscle to hold Merlin in place, which was just unfair. But he was rather a good kisser, and Merlin felt his resistance give way about the same time Arthur pulled his shirt up and off.

::

"I'd say that was worth missing the feast," Arthur said some considerable amount of time later. Merlin was rather too stunned to reply, so he just hummed a bit, hoping Arthur would take it as agreement.

Arthur dropped off to sleep pretty quickly, and Merlin let himself hope. If they'd missed the feast then they'd missed Arthur falling and smashing his head open, hopefully, and things could go back to normal.

He fell asleep, and dreamed that he was cleaning up the table after lunch.

"Merlin, I need my cloak for the feast tonight," Arthur said. "Merlin! Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm - wait, the feast tonight? The feast was yesterday."

"The feast is tonight. Have you lost your mind?"

"I must be dreaming," Merlin realized, and then the door burst open and Morgana rushed in.

"You didn't fix it? I thought for sure you'd fixed it," she said, pacing agitatedly.

"What is going on?" Arthur asked.

"You didn't come down to the feast and I thought for sure you'd done it when I didn't hear anything before I went to bed," Morgana said, ignoring him.

"The feast is tonight," Arthur said. "There was no feast last night."

"I thought I'd done it too," Merlin said.

"So he didn't die, then," Morgana said, staring at him.

"Who didn't die?" Arthur asked.

"I don't think so," Merlin said.

"Why are we here?" Morgana asked. "It doesn't make sense."

"Does Gwen," Merlin started, then stopped, unsure how to explain it. He waved his hand in the air, hoping Morgana would know what he meant by the little circles.

"She doesn't know," Morgana said. "She had no idea about it this morning, she doesn't remember anything."

"What doesn't she remember?" Arthur asked.

"Not now, Arthur," Morgana snapped.

"I'm trying to get ready for the feast, so if you aren't going to tell me what's going on, I'd thank you to stop distracting my manservant," Arthur said.

"Prat," Merlin said, because Morgana looked worried, and he hated seeing her upset after all that had happened.

"I thought we were done," Morgana said. "I didn't feel it last night."

"Feel what?" Arthur asked.

"I didn't do it last night," Merlin said. "So you wouldn't have felt it."

"But it still happened," Morgana said slowly.

"If you don't tell me what you're all on about," Arthur started, grabbing Merlin's arm.

"Not now, Arthur," Merlin said, shoving him off. Arthur and Morgana stared at him.

::

Merlin missed the feast again because he spent the evening in the dungeon. It was kind of nice to have a break, but he couldn't really relax because Morgana was on Arthur duty all by herself and if she wasn't successful they were finished. He didn't know how time had looped last night, but he wasn't going to count on it working again.

Plus, his head hurt, a lot.

He heard Arthur before he saw him; he was carrying on a rather loud conversation with someone else as he came down the stairs.

"Whoops," Arthur said, and he was falling, and he hit the ground pretty hard and his body slid a couple feet towards Merlin's cell.

Merlin looked up, horrified, and saw Morgana sit down slowly on the step, covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders were shaking.

Arthur's blood was starting to seep through the straw. Merlin's head felt fuzzy, and he shook it a bit desperately, hoping to clear it a bit. His ears popped, and it hurt, and he put his hands up to cover them. The room was spinning.

"Merlin, don't cover your ears when I'm talking to you!" Arthur shouted, pulling his hands away from his head.

"What?" Merlin asked.

"I said, I need my red cloak for the feast tonight, and I think you should wear the hat. You're expected to serve me, you know, and you need to look the part."

Merlin glanced at the door, half-expecting Morgana to walk in, but she didn't.

"Merlin!" Arthur said, shaking his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Right, cloak, I think it's, um, I'll go get it," Merlin said, and escaped.

::

Morgana had no recollection of any of the previous events; Gwen had hustled him out of her rooms so that she could dress for the feast.

Merlin retrieved the red cloak kind of numbly. It had been one thing when he'd been working with the girls. He didn't know if he could do this without them, and he didn't know why they weren't involved anymore, either. His head hurt too much to think about it, like he had some long-running spell he was still trying to maintain.

Arthur was his usual prattish self at the feast, gesturing impatiently at Merlin when he refilled his wine glass incorrectly and glaring when he did anything even vaguely improper.

Merlin felt his ears pop again, harder than the last loop, and the dregs of his magic fell away. He reached up to touch an ear, to confirm it was still there, and his fingers came away bloody.

"Merlin!" Arthur snapped, and Merlin jerked, stumbled to the table to pour more wine. His head felt overfull and stuffy. Something was seriously wrong.

"What is wrong with you?" Arthur grumbled. "You aren't normally this bad."

"I-" Merlin started, with no idea how to continue. He was leaning rather heavily against the table, and he tried to stand up, but his legs crumpled and he fell to his knees instead.

Arthur stood up hastily, shoving his chair back and pulling Merlin to his feet, his hand like an iron vise around Merlin's arm.

"No worries, he's just drunk," Arthur said to Uther, pitching his voice low so no one else could overhear. "I will escort him back to his room."

"Tomorrow, it's the stocks," Uther replied. "You need to get him under control."

Merlin opened his mouth to protest, something hysterical bubbling up in his chest, but Arthur dragged him away and out the side servants' door before he could say anything.

"You're bleeding a lot," Arthur said. "What did you do?"

"Nnnngh," Merlin said. His face felt wet; maybe it was the blood.

Arthur half-carried him up the back stairs. Something was wrong, Merlin knew it, but he couldn't focus, couldn't pin down anything. He just had a horrible sense that there was a disaster coming.

The maid was humming as she cleaned the step, and he thought he should have been able to place the tune but it was just out of his reach.

"Excuse me, sorry," Arthur said, maneuvering Merlin around her bucket.

Merlin thought he felt the world stop, but it was really just Arthur slipping on a wet rag. Merlin flung out a hand and wrapped his fingers tightly in Arthur's shirt, yanking him backwards, far away from the stairs. They wobbled and crashed backwards, Arthur falling on top of Merlin.

"Ow," Merlin mumbled, then sputtered, trying to brush Arthur's hair out of his mouth.

"You're an idiot, Merlin," Arthur said as he climbed to his feet and then pulled Merlin up. "I bet you can't even make it up the stairs to Gaius's rooms."

::

In the morning, Merlin woke up on the floor, in last night's clothes and with dried blood on his face and hands. Every muscle in his body ached and his head was pounding, but it was a different sort of pounding than last night.

He managed to pull himself up to stand, and then he realized he was in Arthur's room. Arthur was fast asleep in his bed; Merlin could hear him snoring lightly.

Merlin collapsed into a chair, inadvertently knocking a plate off the table. He moaned and put his head in his hands.

"Told you you shouldn't have drunk so much at the feast last night," Arthur said, his voice gravely with sleep.

"Prat," Merlin mumbled.

That afternoon in the stocks, his back aching from bending over and his legs trembling, his head still aching, he could see Arthur laughing his pratly head off with some of his knights across the courtyard.

Merlin smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 'time loops' for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/cliche_bingo/profile)[**cliche_bingo**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/cliche_bingo/). R for sort of graphic descriptions of death. Thanks to S for making the plot clearer.


End file.
